Posted by
Bert Chapman on Thursday, April 23, 2009 5:13:08 PM
In the over 7 1/2 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks there have been no additional terrorist attacks in the U.S. The reasons for this have been providential protection, security enhancements made by governmental agencies since 9/11, initiating military operations against Islamist terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan/Pakistan and Iraq, and conducting vigorous interrogation (including waterboarding) against terrorist suspects. Unfortunately, Obama's recent decision to end enhanced interrogation against terrorist suspects is a dangerous move that drastically increases the likelihood of a successful terrorist attack in the U.S.
When seeking to gather actionable intelligence against terrorist targets time is of the essence. It is often necessary to use harsh techniques to elicit the information necessary to prevent such attacks from occurring. Islamist terrorists have no interest in appealing to our better our natures nor are they responsive to the alleged cures of secularist western psychotherapy. They do not desire to dialogue with us. They desire to destroy us and believe that by doing so they will go to heaven. Attempting to rationally converse with them in the naive hope that they will voluntarily confess operational attacks against American targets is sheer stupidity!
Whether you are playing a game or sport or engaging in a war you never tell your opponent or enemy what you will not do because that gives them an overwhelming competitive advantage against you. For instance, a prudent basketball coach will never publicly announce that they will not use a 2-3 zone defense against an opponent or abstain from taking three point shots. Obama's decision to ban enhanced interrogation techniques means terrorists now know the limits to which use military and civilian intelligence personnel can legally go in their attempts to extract information from terrorists we capture. Al Qaida and other anti-American terrorists can now train their operatives on how to effectively resist these drastically limited interrogations of them. There is no telling how many American and civilian lives will be lost because of this imbecilic decision.
The Obama Administration's decision that it may actually consider prosecuting Bush Administration officials who wrote the legal justifications for these enhanced interrogations is also chilling. Policy differences between presidential administrations are now being criminalized. Can you imagine the outcry that would ensue if the Republican Administration coming after the Obama Administration decided it would criminally prosecute Obama Administration Justice Dept. officials such as Attorney General Holder for issuing this document. The leftist legal "intelligentsia" would go beserk with cries of fascist intimidation and other nonsense.
Sadly, we have a President who is absolutely clueless on how to fight Islamist terrorism. He naively believes he can sit down and have a civil conservation with terrorist despots like Ahmadinejad and demagogic twits like Hugo Chavez who desire to kill Americans and thwart our national interests at every turn. This naive belief in his persuasive powers is something Obama shares with Franklin D. Roosevelt who stupidly believed he could turn Joseph Stalin into a respector of democratic freedoms. If, God forbid, there are further terrorist attacks in the U.S. against American civilian and/or military targets, you can trace the lineage of such attacks to the April decision to end enhanced interrogation techniques. Is this the kind of change you can believe in? I don't think so.